So a RAM chip, a NAND module, and an “ultracapacitor” walk into stick...

This week Micron released a press blast for technology called, “NVDIMM”. The goal is to create memory modules which perform as quickly as DRAM but can persist without power. At this point you could probably guess the acronym: Nonvolatile Dual In-line Memory Module. It has been around for a few years now, but it is in the news now so let's chat about it.

I often like to play the game, “Was this named by an engineer or a marketer?” You can typically tell who was responsible for naming something by gauging how literally it breaks down into a simple meaning versus not having any apparent meaning at all. A good example of an engineer name is UHF, which breaks down into ultra-high frequency because it's higher than VHF, very-high frequency. A good example of a marketing name would be something like “Centrino”, which sounds like the biggest little penny-slot machine in the world. I would quite comfortable guessing that NVDIMM was named by an engineer.

This is AgigA Tech's module, who provides the capacitors for Micron and their NVDIMMs.

The actual makeup of NVDIMMs is quite sensible: DIMMs are fast but die when the power goes out. You could prevent the power from going out but it takes quite a lot of battery life to keep a computer online for extended periods of time. NAND Flash is quite slow, relative to DIMMs, in normal operation but can persist without power for very long periods of time. Also, modern-day capacitors are efficient and durable enough to keep DIMMs powered for long enough to be copied to flash memory.

As such, if the power goes out: memory is dumped to flash on the same chip. When power is restored, DIMMs get reloaded and continue on their merry way.

According to the Micron press release, the first NVDIMM was demonstrated last November at SC12. That module contained twice as much NAND as it did DIMM memory: 8GB of Flash for 4GB of RAM. Micron did not specify why they required having that much extra Flash memory although my gut instinct is to compensate for write wearing problems. A two-fold increase to offset NAND that had just one too many write operations seems like quite a lot compared to consumer drives. That said, SSDs do not have to weather half of their whole capacity being written to each time the computer shuts down.

At $280 the 32GB kit of DDR3-2400 RAM from G.Skill costs more than an SSD but if you consider what you would have paid for 4GB of DDR3 when it first hit the market you can't argue that the price of a kit like this has fallen drastically. The timings are not even particularly loose for DIMMs of this speed, 10-12-12-31 @ 2T is not too shabby, though Neoseeker didn't have much luck tightening them as they couldn't get to the fully rated speed of the DIMMs due to their motherboard not being able to support that speed. Keep note of that, many motherboards simply do not have 2400MHz as a choice in the BIOS and many CPUs won't be able to keep these DIMMs fully active. You could always opt for using a goodly chunk of the memory as a RAM drive, no matter what speed your BIOS supports. Check the full review here.

"Today I will be looking at G. Skill's Trident X DDR3 2400MHz 32GB quad channel memory kit. With their goal of extreme overclocking performance, G. Skill uses the highest quality memory IC's available when manufacturing their memory. To ensure trouble-free operation, their memory undergoes rigorous testing to verify their craftsmanship and performance."

Over at Tweaktown is a review of an upgrade for Ultrabooks, Patriot's 1.35V, 8GB DDR3-1600MHz at $45 for a single SODIMM. The idea is that not only do you get a decent sized pool of RAM but because it sips 10% less power than a standard SODIMM you might just get a bit more battery life. They tested out the memory on a Lenovo ThinkPad W530 with a 6-cell battery, not the longest lasting of setups and saw about a 10% increase in battery life as you might have expected. That did only translate to an extra 17 minutes but as the laptop in question was only good for 4.5 hours of life, you can expect better return from an Ultrabook with a longer battery life.

"The big push in 2013 for mobile performance will be fought in battery life. Like every other market, if you want to get the best available you have to go to the aftermarket for premium components. The Patriot Memory for Ultrabooks will increase your notebook or ultrabook battery life, but just like everything premium, you have to pay a bit more."

Corsair has announced their new line of "Flash Voyager GT Turbo" flash drives that will blow the doors off of most USB drives on the market and might even give some SSD's a run for their money.

These USB 3.0 drives will be natively compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports. With read speeds of up to 260 MB/s and write speeds of up to 235 MB/s, these drives should meet any high speed data transfer needs.

The drives will come in three sizes, 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB, but that speed comes at a cost. The 32 GB drive will have a suggested retail price of $49.99 (USD), the 64 GB will retail for $89.99, and the 128 GB drive will weigh in at a hefty $179.99 when released.

The drives are backed by a nice 5 year warranty and the drive itself looks fairly well made, but will the hefty price tag turn consumers off? Only time will tell.

It is a nice change when a company understates the performance of their product instead of barely living up to their promises. Such is the case with the dual channel Crucal Ballistix Tactical 1600MHz kit, at least the one that Funky Kit benchmarked. They hit 2133MHz and kept the timings at 9-9-9-24 1T, not bad for DIMMs which are billed for 8-8-8-24 1T@ 1600MHz! Even better these DIMMs are very low profile, so even on boards with the DIMM slots clustered around the CPU socket you won't be limited in your choice of oversized CPU coolers. The full review is available here.

"This has been some fun memory to play with, it's ability to hit clocks 50% higher than stock is impressive. It's ability to hit 2133MHz with 9-9-9 timings at only 1.5v is quite impressive."

For DDR3-2400 the Dual Channel ADATA XPG Gaming Series 8GB kit has decent timings @ 11-13-13-35. Neoseeker's testing was not without problems however as Windows refused to boot at the full 2400MHz on their MSI Big Bang XPower II, instead they had to run at 2133MHz though the timings were tightened to 10.13.13.31 1T. Performance fell in line with other similar kits at that speed, perhaps not at the top of the pack but certainly in the running. They are out of stock at NewEgg, but you might be able to lay your hands on these fancy green DIMMs from another retailer.

"ADATA hopes to join the ranks of the big boys in the gaming memory market with their XPG Gaming v2.0 series of memory kits. We review the DDR3-2400 8GB dual channel kit and put head to head against the likes of G.Skill's Ripjaws Z, Patriot's Viper III and the Corsair Dominator GT to see how well it can compete."

UPDATE: Thanks to all who participated! Our winners have been selected and emails have gone out for shipping information!! Thanks again to our friends at G.Skill for the prizes!!

To thank the readers of PC Perspective we have teamed up with friends at G.Skill to open up another incredibly easy to win contest / sweepstakes for some great prizes! We have a pair of 8GB DDR3 memory kits up for grabs this time around.

First up is a 2 x 4GB kit of G.Skill Sniper memory running at 1866 MHz.

Also on the giveaway block is a 2 x 4GB kit of G.Skill Trident X memory capable of 2400 MHz DDR3 speeds!

Also, stop by the G.Skill Facebook page and see what they have to offer there as well. They frequently run their own contests so you might want to like their page just in case.

Leave a comment here on this post!

That's it - we love our fans so we want to make sure EVERYONE gets a chance to win some free stuff!

We will close the contest on Monday the 19th at 1pm EST or so - so get your entries in! Thanks again for being a fan of PC Perspective, thanks to G.Skill for the great prizes and stay tuned for MORE contests and giveaways in the coming days!

In order to get the most out of Kingston's HyperX Predator 2.67GHz 8GB dual channel kit you need a serious processor, even high end Ivy Bridge processors cannot fully benefit from the entire available bandwidth. To that end Pro-Clockers used the SB-E Core i7 3930K which is more often utilized in quad channel but in this case is using high frequency dual channel DDR3. There is no question the memory is fast if you have a motherboard and CPU which allows memory to run at that frequency and Pro-Clockers testing implies that it is going as fast as it can stably at that particular XMP setting. There are other profiles available, with tighter timings which means this kit can be of use for someone looking for lower frequency memory at tighter timings that the default 11-13-13-26 @ 1T.

"Over the past few months we have had the pleasure of reviewing some very fast memory. We have seen some 1866MHz kits from the likes of Corsair, Crucial, G.Skill and Kingston. And the fastest up to this day has been a kit from G.Skill which was dialed in at 2400MHz by default. But today we are topping that with a new 2666MHz kit from Kingston. The HyperX Predator at 2666MHz boast timings at 11-13-13-26 and some pretty awesome heat spreaders."

It looks like there is a new memory rating on the market from Patriot, Intel Extreme Masters which purports to be hand tested for perfect XMP compatibility as well as sporting a new heatsink design. Timings of 11-11-11-27 for DDR3-2133 are rather impressive as is 9-9-9-24 at DDR3-1600 and Bjorn 3D managed to overclock it to 2300MHz. They did question the default 3T setting of the DIMMs as they ran fine at 2T though trying for 1T at those speeds is not only pushing it but questionably useful for anything but an heavily overclocked i7 CPU.

"Nowadays, memory tends to be more of a battle over who can bin the tightest, as all IC’s shipping for the most part are pretty much the same. In the memory market it all comes down to how you can differentiate yourself from the same old stuff that we may see every day. Patriot has the new Viper 3 series which is what this kit is part of, and carrying the “Intel Extreme Masters” means it went through extensive testing to prove utmost compatibility with new DDR3 motherboards and XMP easy tuning."

"The 16GB quad-channel kit of 2133MHz HyperX Genesis memory from Kingston Technology is a memory kit that is more than capable of handling any number of large memory usage computer programs, while also providing the speed of 2133MHz to ensure that our programs work quickly, and effortlessly. And having the ability of pushing this memory even farther to 2200MHz will ensure that overclockers will have some room to play..."